


Sugar On My Wound

by jugandbettsdetectiveagency



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pining, have a late night one shot on me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:22:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12346284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugandbettsdetectiveagency/pseuds/jugandbettsdetectiveagency
Summary: Feels like we're dreaming, we're tripping and reeling, just say that you belong to me.





	Sugar On My Wound

**Author's Note:**

> I know that this song was in a varchie scene but *shrugs* it inspired me.

_Feels like we're dreaming, we're tripping and reeling_

_Just say that you belong to me._

**\- You Belong To Me, Cat Pierce**

 

***

 

Jughead is leaning against the brick wall next to the steps when Betty emerges from the entrance to Riverdale High. Her blue cheerleading uniform is just a few shades lighter than the navy hue enveloping the night air, and the floodlights from the football field illuminate the way the soft, misting rain has summoned a rosy hue to the tips of her nose and ears.

He pushes out of his casual lean and offers her a smile. He intends it to be warm and welcoming, but the reflection in her eyes shows him he's fallen short. Betty's attempt isn't much better, and she sweeps a hand over the flyaways frizzing from her ponytail in the moist air to give herself something to do instead. The sickly pallor of the moonlight does a better job at offering comfort than either of them manage in their greeting.

"Hey, you," Jughead tries, low and inviting, and something catches at the corner of his memories - another day, another expectation not met.

"Hi," she murmurs in such a way that makes it seem like she's trying not to disturb the evening. She's balancing on her tiptoes and he's reaching up to cup her neck, in the familiar dance of a kiss that has slipped into their routine of 'hello', before either of them can even think that they may no longer be stepping to the same beat. "Where's your bike?"

Jughead tugs at the collar of his sherpa jacket, trying not to focus on the way the material itches against his neck recently. "Outside Archie's. I thought we'd walk tonight?" He hadn't meant for it to sound like a question, but Betty has that all too familiar crease between her brows that he only likes to see emerge when it's accompanied by a gasp of his name and the drag of her nails across his shoulder blades.

"But it's raining," she states, as if he can't feel the way the drizzle is pushing his hair into his eyes, settling on her lashes until it looks like she's made of crystal. A part of her dissolves with every puzzled blink.

"Well, it wasn't when I left," Jughead replies tersely. He instantly berates himself when her head jerks back in surprise, taking a shuffling step away from her, allowing her room to breathe. "Sorry. Fred's truck is still here, we could catch a lift with him and Archie if you want," he submits, eyes scanning the emptying parking lot.

Betty's already shaking her head before he's finished, limp ponytail heavy with rain and barely swaying. "No, it's okay. A walk sounds nice," she acquiesces, lacing their fingers quickly so they're no longer face to face.

The moon follows them dutifully as they make their way along the sidewalk. Jughead watches their linked hands swinging, and he's had this dream a lot recently. It ends with blossoming bruises across his knuckles, covered by a thick sheet of moulded brass, before Betty lets go, shrieking in pain.

The tips of her fingers begin to whiten as he squeezes tighter.

"How was the game?" Jughead cringes as the words tumble clumsily from his tongue. She shoots him a look that affectionately lets him know she's not buying his attempt at small talk.

"It's okay, I know you don't really care," she teases, leaning a fraction closer to him as she delivers her jibe, and he's all the more thankful he chose to ask.

He smirks. "You got me." Her head rests on his shoulder for a brief second and his breath catches in his throat, the way it once did around four letters in the confines of a floral fortress. Jughead's heart thuds to make up for lack of oxygen; he thinks he'd be happy for it to give out completely if it meant this feeling never went away. "Maybe I just like to hear you talk," he murmurs, his voice barely more than a low hum.

In his peripheries, Jughead can see Betty roll her lower lip between her teeth, transferring its colour to her cheeks as she flushes prettily.

"The game was good, the Bulldogs had an easy win. Cheryl's been going crazy over this new routine she's had us learn. If I thought she was a perfectionist before, then she's a perfectionist on caffeine now..."

He wasn't lying - he does like to listen to her talk. Her voice is the epitome of childhood nostalgia, and coming of age epiphanies, to him. Jughead's every milestone has been carved out with the dulcet tones of Betty Cooper's genteel lilt, engraining itself into his very being without him even realising. Or maybe he had realised, he must have done on some level - it had just taken a minute for his brain to catch up with his lips.

(There was a certain shadow of impulsiveness over his character that he was, for once, thankful to his father for. Or maybe it was more like his mother, he couldn't remember.)

He hums and nods in all the right places as she continues to fill him in on what he's missed since taking up a more involved residence on the south side.

"How was your day?" Betty asks eventually as they reach the corner of her street.

Jughead shrugs by way of deflection, used to keeping his mouth shut. "Nothing special." Nothing he wants her to know about, the phantom weight of a cash filled envelope still heavy in his pocket. "This is the best part," he tells her, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand as they come to a stop.

Betty smiles then - it has a verdant glow with softly curved edges - and it's the one that he'd wanted when he picked her up at the school. He's coaxed it out of her, still there but buried deeper every day, and he's always been known for his way with words.

When he kisses her this time she doesn't lean up to meet him. Instead, her back bows back with the force, a surprise squeal slipping from her mouth and into his. She smells like damp fabric and coconut hairspray, lingering traces of mint from her gum bursting across his tongue when he licks past the seam of her lips. His desperate hands clutch at her hips, and when she's recovered Betty's reach up to comb through his hair, triggering an appreciative moan from the back of his throat.

The sound of their tongues brushing against one another's fill the otherwise calm streets of a broken town. Jughead can feel when Betty starts to shiver in his arms, not from the cold.

When they part their breaths cloud the air between their barely separated faces, adding to the fog already covering their eyes.

"Come home with me," he whispers flatly, unable to hope but knowing that she'll probably agree anyway. He's not sure if it's excitement or dread that floods to the tips of his fingers when Betty nods easily. "Your mom..." he tries to reason when she doesn't, unable to understand why he's the one trying to press pause on their potential tryst.

"Isn't here right now," she finishes for him. He sees his own impulsiveness flash in her lust-blown pupils for a fleeting second and swallows around the lump of guilt that lodges itself in his throat.

Having Betty Cooper's limbs wrapped around him on his motorcycle is not an experience Jughead ever thought he'd have.

He presses her against the wall as soon as they're inside the trailer, revelling in her giggle as she gets swallowed by the mass of coats and jackets hung on the hooks there. Betty's eyes are glittering as she looks at him, and so are the slits of the threaded snake peering over her shoulder.

Dread washes over Jughead as he takes in the sight of Betty pressed up against his Serpents jacket, ducking in quickly to pepper her face with panicked kisses. He covers her eyelids, her cheeks, her jawline, with his poor attempt at a sorry, his kisses a sickly sweet bandaid over a gaping wound that has his stomach turning.

Jughead tries to tell himself that Betty's golden hair looks out of place fanned against his dark blue sheets because he'd always pictured her laid out on pristine white.

"Juggie, please," she whimpers when he grazes her teeth over her exposed nipple, pulling at his hair with a painful force he only welcomes. He laves her breast with dutiful attention, leaving a glistening trail as he works his way down the smooth plane of her stomach. Betty claws at his shirt, lifting it from his body. It leaves him feeling vulnerable, just like her use of his childhood nickname had, and he tugs her skirt off quicker.

Jughead swallows as his fingers press against the damp fabric of her panties, finding the spot that has her squirming beneath him instantly. He knows her body, has mapped every angle and every pressure point perfectly, as fast as he was able. He wanted to know it all before he no longer had the chance. It would add a layer of sugar over the bitter memories he'd be left with.

"I love you," she whispers earnestly when he pushes inside of her. Jughead disguises his choke as a groan as her wet heat clenches around him, possessing him. He's selfish, so selfish, but he can't help it. He can't bring himself to stop taking from her, until he's sure he'd be giving her back in too many pieces to form a whole again.

"I love-" Jughead finishes his sentence with a pointed thrust of his hips instead, and she knows - Betty knows. Her legs settle on his hips, drawing him back in every time, hands pulling on the rolling muscles of his shoulders. Jughead has first hand experience with how sharp Betty's nails could be. "I don't want you to go," he gasps, losing his frantic words in her mouth.

"I won't, I won't, I'm yours," she croons, tugging his lower lip between her teeth as they both hurtle towards their peak.

She believes it, and so does he, and that's what tears open the cavity in his chest, a bottomless void that's inescapable.

While they come down from their high, the tang of her salty sweat on his tongue as he kisses her collarbone still tastes sweet to him.

In the morning Betty makes pancakes. She's wearing his old S shirt and she's hung his jacket up by the door, nonchalantly hiding the intrusive snake beneath.

She pours maple syrup over his stack for him, her smile once again reserved. When Jughead takes a bite the syrup turns to powder in his mouth, numbing his gums and weighing his tongue like lead. Betty doesn't eat.

"I can give you a lift home," Jughead offers when there's nothing left to say.

"I should get the bus," she replies, pulling her hair up into a tie, back turned.

"You should," he says. Their eyes meet in the mirror and the air stands still.

As they race through the streets of Riverdale in the early morning fog, Betty holding on tight around his waist, Jughead doesn't know how many more discrepancies they have left, but he hopes, as always, it's just one more.


End file.
